IN writing this ponderous tome, the author's desire
has been to describe the eminent characters and
remarkable events of our annals in such a form and
style that the YOUNG
may make acquaintance with
them of their own accord. For this purpose, while
ostensibly relating the adventures of a chair, he has
endeavored to keep a distinct and unbroken thread of
authentic history. The chair is made to pass from one
to another of those personages of whom he thought it
most desirable for the young reader to have vivid and
familiar ideas, and whose lives and actions would best
enable him to give picturesque sketches of the times.
On its sturdy oaken legs it trudges diligently from one
scene to another, and seems always to thrust itself in
the way, with most benign complacency, whenever an
historical personage happens to be looking round for
a seat.

There is certainly no method by which the shadowy
outlines of departed men and women can be made to
assume the hues of life more effectually than by
connecting their images with the substantial and homely
reality of a fireside chair. It causes us to feel at once
that these characters of history had a private and
familiar existence, and were not wholly contained within
that cold array of outward action which we are
compelled to receive as the adequate representation of
their lives. If this impression can be given, much is
accomplished.

Setting aside Grandfather and his auditors, and
excepting the adventures of the chair, which form the
machinery of the work, nothing in the ensuing pages
can be termed fictitious. The author, it is true, has
sometimes assumed the license of filling up the outline
of history with details for which he has none but
imaginative authority, but which, he hopes, do not violate
nor give a false coloring to the truth. He believes
that, in this respect, his narrative will not be found to
convey ideas and impressions of which the reader may
hereafter find it necessary to purge his mind.

The author's great doubt is, whether he has
succeeded in writing a book which will be readable by
the class for whom he intends it. To make a lively
and entertaining narrative for children, with such
unmalleable material as is presented by the sombre,
stern, and rigid characteristics of the Puritans and
their descendants, is quite as difficult an attempt as
to manufacture delicate playthings out of the granite
rocks on which New England is founded.